Instincts
by chloemcg
Summary: Just after their escape from NIMH, the rats (and two mice) find themselves in a woodlands. During a patrol, Jonathan Brisby discovers a trapped owl caught in a fence. Of course its only natural for mice to fear their biggest predator but can Jonathan get through his instincts to save someone who needs his help? And will the owl abide by his instincts and end up devouring him?


**Disclaimer: I don't own anyone, the characters of the Secret of NIMH belong to Don Bluth and not me. I OWN NOTHING!**

**Instinct**

* * *

The Autumn wilderness was hard but lush and beautiful at the same time, the trees were losing their leaves —they had turned into a variety of colours like brown, golden, pale green and crimson red. The grounds were absolutely coated in some leaves that had fallen astray and landed on the ground in what appeared to be a blanket of dying leaves.

The woodlands were mostly silent, save for the distant squawks and chirps of the local aviary wildlife, and the "pitter, patter" of a large collection of little scampering feet.

All was normal until a small pack of rats and two mice had started to venture across the leafy ground, huddling close together as they traversed the wood just outside of the cold and cruel city of where they had escaped from. The recently-escaped rats of National Institute of Mental Health (or NIMH) were all on the run as they tried to flee from their pursuers, the scientists who had performed their cruel experiments on them to begin with and they all selectively refused to go back to being locked in cages and enduring more pain.

After gaining their newly obtained intellect, the rats and mice had decided they wanted to expand upon their new lives and they simply knew that going back was not an option; they just knew that they needed to find somewhere, anywhere, to call home so they could hone their newly-obtained intelligence.

The two mice and twenty rats kept on walking, most of them were down on all fours since they tried to get used to the concept of walking around on two legs, they all knew they could walk on two legs but decided to keep walking on all four legs because it was faster. The group could feel the sun shining on their backs and they smiled since the warmth was comforting, and when the sun shone through the thin, fallen leaves, it coloured the world in nothing but beauty.

The group knew that the sun was beginning to set along the horizon, creating a few beams of golden sunlight, and they found that it was a nice contrast from the darkness and cages that they had seen during their time locked up in NIMH.

About five minutes later, the group decided to stop right next to a particularly large birch tree. It's branches were as bare as a naked mole rat and they each felt like they stood beneath a pile of kindling, the shade provided was cooling and it protected them from the fading sunlight. It was slowly turning from golden to solid orange.

"We should stop and rest here for the night," the leader of the rats, Nicodemus, announced.

Nicodemus was the oldest one of the rats and had taken on the responsibility of leading them. He had a slightly-wrinkled muzzle and he was skinny and had a lanky frame, whether that was from emaciation or from a low metabolism nobody knew. He was covered from head-to-toe with brown fur that hung heavily from his body and he had small boils covering his claws. He carried himself confidently and his eyes had pale yellow whites and a pair of faded, cloudy pupils.

The rats and mice, all exhausted from the walk, then all started to sit down on the ground and rub their aching feet.

Nobody had a clue as to how long they had been walking for but all they knew was that it had been a long time and it was enough to make both paws and feet start throbbing like no ones business. Something that was a bit frustrating was that nobody knew how much longer they had to walk because nobody had much of as clue as to where they were going. The younger members of the pack were still finding it difficult to keep up but they knew that they needed to follow the others closely, but they couldn't help but imagine what their home would look like?

Would it be nice?

Would they be free to expand their knowledge?

Would they be able to live and then branch off to have families of their own?

The one rodent most eager to have those questions answered was none other than a young mouse named Jonathan Brisby.

He was, by far, the bravest and courageous mouse out of the whole lot and he was even the one responsible for opening the door in the ventilation system that led the rats to their new-found freedom and independence; especially since the young, magnanimous, adolescent field mouse was the only one small, nimble, and agile enough to squeeze through the metal grate and pull the latch.

He, along with Mr Ages, were the only two mice to make it out of NIMH alive...

Jonathan had taken to stopping and leaning heavily against the trunk of an old tree. He could feel the bark rustle his gray fur slightly and he even eyed the patterns and swirls in the bark and couldn't help but be rather intrigued by them. The lines and patterns did look nice but not something worth remembering. His ear twitched when he heard exhausted sighs and then he turned his head to watch as the last of the group settled down and proceeded to relax so they could regain their energy.

They had been walking for quite some time and needed a break, but Jonathan hoped that the researchers of NIMH wouldn't be too far behind them.

The stragglers at the back of the group consisted of a few younger rats.

There was Justin, Jenner and Sullivan.

Jenner and his best friend, Sullivan, were the bullies of the group.

Jenner, a slender black rat, was just the stereotypical bully, to be honest, whom just made others lives miserable just to feel good about himself with a hidden insecurity and fear of change. He also had the bad habit of challenging Nicodemus and always opposed to the decisions he would make but simply followed him because he would be alone otherwise.

Sullivan was a smaller, chubbier black rat and was a bit of a coward with a reluctance to bully the others, unlike Jenner, but he was simply following Jenner since he thought that he was the only rat interested in being his friend.

Jonathan couldn't lie but he felt bad for Sullivan...

Then there was Justin.

Justin was the youngest out of all of the rats of NIMH. He was a young pup when he was first caught and picked up by the scientists of NIMH and, by the time he had been injected, he had become the rat equivalent of a teenager; the only thing that kept him happy during those dark times was Nicodemus, whom had not only taken little Justin under his wing but had also become sort of like a father figure to him.

It was because of this that Justin idolised Nicodemus.

"Come now, Justin, we don't have all day!" The older of the two mice, Mr Ages, called impatiently.

Justin rolled his eyes in annoyance as he breathed heavily. He was just about caught up with the rest of the rats (and mice) of NIMH whilst he grinned cheekily, "Oh, c'mon you grouchy old goat, hold your horses, I'm coming!"

"Hmph!" Harrumphed the old mouse, "If you want to make it as a member of the guard then I suggest you take this seriously and start acting like one."

Justin sighed through his nostrils in mild annoyance when he had heard that. It had been his dream to be apart of a royal guard or something, protecting and serving those he loved. But, everyone simply scoffed at him doubtingly in disbelief. He found it difficult to keep up, being the youngest out of the group, but he also knew that he didn't have to take everything seriously...like how he knew some of the group took themselves a bit too seriously.

He tried not to let himself become too bothered by this, thus he wasn't expecting anyone to come up to him. He was shocked when he saw nobody other than Jonathan standing in front of him with his arm extended out for him to take. Justin grabbed the extended paw and Jonathan helped him stand on his hind legs so the two could go to a nearby log and sit down.

Jonathan sighed with relief as he said, reclining back a bit and closing his eyes relaxedly, "I'm so glad we stopped —I thought my legs would fall off or something."

Justin couldn't suppress a huge smirk.

Jonathan cracked the smallest hint of a smile to the lean and slender brown rat sat next to him.

"Don't worry, Justin, I'm sure Nicodemus will offer ya a place in his guard when we get to our new home."

"Really? You think so?" Justin asked.

"I _know _so!" Jonathan rustled the "hair" on the small rat's head, causing the brown rat to chuckle.

Jonathan and Justin both chatted amongst each other whilst the others set up camp to try and get prepared to rest for the night since Nicodemus was fairly confident that NIMH was a fair way behind them by now. The group all started to relax and make themselves comfortable while Jonathan volunteered to go out on patrol and use the opportunity to go out on a walk to clear his mind a little bit.

The field mouse dropped down to his fours and started to traverse through the thick path of autumn leaves. It was a rough time but he enjoyed his times alone since they gave him precious time to think. He hoped that he could start a new life at wherever the rats of NIMH were going, he wanted to find a nice mouse and settle down eventually...even though he never intended to leave the rats of NIMH either.

He shook his head, he wished it was more simple.

Jonathan's walk lasted awhile and it didn't take too long until the skies started to darken, announcing the arrival of night —the sky turned from a rich orange to a dark indigo/navy blue colour. The field mouse stood on his hind legs, standing more like a human, and carefully treading through the dying multicoloured leafage.

Alas his ear twitched when he heard a faint, distant sound.

It sounded like rustling...and something (or someone) struggling.

He knew instantly he needed to investigate.

Getting back down on all fours, the field mouse dashed towards the sound.

He pressed his back against a tree and peered from behind it.

Jonathan gasped as he saw something that made his heart plunge deep into his stomach.

A young adult owl had got one of its wing caught up in a wire fence, the feathers were mangled as they seemed to become entangled in the wiring and the poor young bird of prey was hanging from that one wing as it panted heavily to try and regain the energy it had lost due to trying to struggle and free itself.

That old instinct of fleeing from a predator like this had momentarily flashed across his mind.

Even though he had been capable of way much more than instinct alone, Jonathan had still found it hard to separate himself from those main and simple thought processes. He would feel the uncontrollable need to skitter away to the nearest safe place possible and he felt this invisible force trying to tug him away, but it didn't take him long to discover that it was instinct trying to control him like a puppet once more.

He shook it off and bit his lower lip.

He didn't know whether to act.

Owls _ate _mice, after all!

But could...could he honestly leave the poor owl to struggle?

Jonathan lowered his head and felt his heart sink with guilt, his ears withered and his spine crawled. He just wasn't someone who could abandon someone when they needed him most, and he didn't want to start being that someone right now. He looked up with a fire of determination igniting and then blazing inside his brown eyes.

He couldn't leave the owl, even if he was a predator...!

Plus, the struggling might attract some unwanted attention.

Springing into action, the field mouse scampered up to the fence and looked up at it. It was a wire fence and, upon closer examination, it appeared that the owl had gotten some of the feathers of one of his wings caught up and entangled in some of the wiring.

He felt a small knot form in his throat but swallowed it.

He couldn't let fear get the best of him.

He climbed up the wire fence and he bit his lower lip to try and stuff down that previous anxiety he had felt. He could feel the burn in his muscles as he navigated his way up the dark green wiring that seemed to form into a bit of a makeshift ladder just for his size and aptitude, something the gray mouse was really glad for. He kept climbing and climbing until he had finally reached that bit of the fence where the feathers had become ensnared and it he made short work of nibbling down on the material as though it were a piece of liquorice, using the edges of his front buck tooth to try and cut through it, his eyes were narrowed as he focused on trying to free the struggling owl.

Those instincts were screaming at him to run away.

He ignored them, though.

He had to focus!

The owl had finally ceased struggling and just hung limply by the wing. He had his eyes closed and his beak had been clamped shut as he seemed to have passed out. It was a rather tragic sight to behold as Jonathan wondered for a brief second whether the owl was still alive, a question that was quickly dismissed after he saw the rising and falling of the owl's chest, indicating that he was still actually alive.

Jonathan smirked to himself a bit.

Perfect!

It took a tense few seconds when the owl had finally opened his eyes, seeming to have been awoken when he felt the nibbling of the mouse, and started to squirm more frantically. A loud, eardrum-exploding screech bellowed from his beak as he seemed to grow panicky. Jonathan hastened his attempts to free the owl and nibbled even faster and then untangled the owls crossed feathers and that was it.

It was the second that the owl had been released, however, that Jonathan had lost his balance and was knocked off of his place on the fence.

Thankfully he had a big pile of leaves to break his fall but that was the least of his concerns as he suddenly found himself being partially crushed beneath a rather big talon and all at once he found it difficult to breathe. His brown eyes lifted and found themselves staring straight into a huge pair of wise, yellow and intelligent eyes that were overflowing with a mix of hunger and something else. Johnathan tried to evade looking into those eyes but he regarded a sense of curiosity inside of them as well as hostility.

He tried his best to keep his lungs functioning normally as he sucked in oxygen as hard as his little body could allow.

This was just what he was afraid of.

He felt like he was being crushed from the inside out, that instinct of fight or flight coming back in full force.

Jonathan stared into that glowing yellow eye and, for a brief moment, he could have sworn that he saw some sort of great wisdom gleaming within. It was almost enough to take whatever breath he had left away as he clawed the ground beneath him as it was all he could do to regulate his racing pulse. His vision started to darken and tunnel as dark spots decorated his eyesight and he felt his ribs break within.

He succumbed to the need to close his eyes.

The crushing sensation ended abruptly when he suddenly felt that crushing lift itself off of him and he started hacking and coughing and he somehow found the energy to feebly roll over on his stomach as he practically coughed up a lung.

That was intense...!

The mouse looked back up and saw that the owl had lifted its claw off of him and had stepped back, a look of genuine shock written plainly across the plumage that was his face.

Whilst one of the mice of NIMH recovered his breath, he could faintly hear the owl say something. It was really hard to hear at first but, as the seconds passed whilst he truly recovered, he finally heard it and he felt his lungs finally expand completely whilst he clutched his ribs.

"...Why?" The voice asked, bewildered.

Jonathan lifted his gaze and up to the dumbstruck owl whom had clearly stepped back with that same look of stupefying wonder stamped on his feathery expression. Could this owl had stepped away from him because he had saved him? He felt a bit...winded due to the attack, but he didn't know whether his hearing had malfunctioned as well.

"H-Huh?"

The owl repeated his question.

"Why...? Are you not aware of what I am? What the relationship of our species is?"

Jonathan finally smirked weakly at the question, and he pondered on it for a few moments before he answered it.

"Is it wrong to help someone in need?"

That question seemed to take the owl aback.

Jonathan finally got to his feet, still breathing heavily whilst clutching his chest where his ribs were. He flinched when he felt the broken bones beneath his fingers since he was sure that Mr ages was going to chew him out (perhaps even literally) for hurting himself so much that he managed to break a rib or two. He shook his head, though.

He would deal with that later.

Then he looked back to the owl he had saved and was shocked to see that he had taken a more formal stance as the owl swept one wing, his non ruffled one, across his own chest plumage and gave a curt yet polite bow.

"You have my most sincere gratitude for this, young mouse,"

The small gray mouse just smiled warmly and gave him a thumbs up, still trembling a bit due to the adrenaline and fear he had felt. However he felt very appreciative for the thanks he was receiving. He managed a sheepish smile whilst he rubbed the back of his head in a sheepish yet bashful manner. He appreciated the gratitude but he knew, as he said, that it was the least he could do.

"Ah...d-don't mention it. I couldn't leave anyone to die, no matter who or what they are."

The owl smiled in a kind-hearted manner.

It dropped when Jonathan started to ask something.

"Errrm...if it isn't any trouble, you wouldn't happen to know anywhere that me and my friends, the rats, can go hide out?"

The owl pointed a wing southwards and grinned wryly down at the mouse, a somewhat happy and enthusiastic glimmer in his wonderfully golden glowing eyes. He stomped his talons on the ground as he prepared to flap his wings in preparation to fly up to the skies that awaited him.

"There is a farm towards the south, head there and you shall be save from NIMH for a short time..."

Jonathan nodded, a serious expression overcoming his face.

"And the rats of NIMH will be safe?"

The owl nodded.

The owl flapped his wings once more in preparation to take flight and glanced down at the mouse whilst he turned around so he could get a view of his back and tail feathers. He was clearly getting bored with the conversation as he spread his large gray wings with his feathers fluttering in the air.

"I must bid you good day, but know this sir...?"

"Jonathan Brisby. My name is Jonathan Brisby,"

"Jonathan Brisby. I promise you that your story shall be told and your name shall always be known in these woods, never to be forgotten..." The owl smirked as he eyed the small mouse with a surprising amount of compassion, "...You have my word as the Great owl."

Jonathan smiled warmly as he watched the Great owl leave and he waved after him as he took to the air and left. He waited for a few minutes, until he had fully recovered enough to properly move, dropped down to stand on all fours and started to rush away to scamper back to the rats of NIMH.

It hurt to move but he would worry about it much later, but he couldn't keep the others waiting especially now he could direct the others to a location where they could be safe.

He hoped that he wouldn't get in trouble or anything...

But he had no idea that, from a fair distance, Nicodemus had watched the whole thing with a proud smile on his face.

After getting back, Jonathan was berated for a good twenty minutes about recklessly going off on his own and getting hurt by Mr Ages (as he thought) whilst the latter applied some medical herbs to his wounds so his broken ribs could heal up more quickly. He could hear the older grumpy mouse grumble beneath his breath whilst he wrapped up his chest with a few vines like a bandage and he couldn't help but hiss in pain when the tightening sensation from the vines stung.

As he sat, the other rats had crowded around him in relief as he had gone longer then he had supposed to and had caused everyone some worry.

Justin, Jenner and Sullivan were the main rats who had surrounded him.

* * *

Apparently word had spread of his deed as the rats crowded around him and while there were skeptics there were also the very few who did believe in him. Mr Ages was definitely in the category who didn't believe in Jonathan since he said that "nobody saw the great owl and lived to tell the tale" while there were a very few who did.

Justin was one of the few who believed him.

The younger adolescent rat smiled in impressed wonderment.

"Is it true you really saved an owl, Johnny?" He asked with wide eyes.

Jonathan smiled happily and nodded, "Uhuh."

"So coooool!"

That was when the two heard someone scoffing from beside them and they turned to find Jenner whom just laughed dismissively. Sullivan looked really impressed but tried to subdue it as he started scuttling up to Jonathan and Justin with an awestruck expression with a certain someone at his side, Jenner. The black rat folded his broad arms across his chest as he eyed the two in an arrogant manner, his smile filled with sharpened fangs that appeared somewhat humorously evil to anyone who wasn't Justin or Jonathan.

Jenner.

Another in the list who didn't believe him.

"Hehheheheh! Are you _really _believing these lying mouse's lies, runt? You really shouldn't believe everything you hear and, besides, it's obvious he's just lying to get attention just because he's not good enough since he's a mouse and we're rats, we're bigger and stronger then him!"

Justin practically spat venom as he snapped, "Get stepped on, Jenner!"

Jonathan just shrugged dismissively, stretching in order to reach up to place a calming hand atop the younger rat's shoulder. It made him cringe in pain but he didn't want to let that show, besides Justin was better then this and he had faith that anybody could change if they really wished to.

"Eh, let it go. Jenner don't have to believe me if he don't want to."

* * *

**A/N: Heres a new Secret of NIMH one-shot.**

**I wondered how the Great owl knew about Jonathan and, thus, this fic was born!**

**I hope you enjoyed it, guys!**

**Please don't forget to fave and review!**

**-Chloemcg **


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